


Not long enough now

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [108]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Mental Instability, Suicidal Thoughts, Vent writing that got out of hand, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28870305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Just a brief instance, on the threshold of a decline.
Series: DS Extras [108]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Kudos: 15





	Not long enough now

His hands shook, when he finally looked down upon them.

They trembled, his every shuddering breath whistling through with a backlogged rattle, a hiss, pained wheeze from the deep of his constricted chest, and yet, still, his hands shook. 

The nightmare fuel sloughed off them, thick greasy oils staining his sleeves dark pitch before pooling onto the yellowed grass below.

Maxwell's hands shook, grand shadow carved talons, distorted monstrous things, and even as the oil hissed and spit and decayed in on itself, used up, the afterimage of corruption did not disappear.

The former Nightmare King's hands trembled, greasy horror claws curved in sharp hooks, and-  
-nothing changed.

His worn gloves still sat in his pockets, Maxwell knew, filled with holes now, stained with past spilled foul blood, but his eyes had locked to his hands, his trembling, monstrous hands.

How far away from human was he now? A better question, how _long_ since he had been even remotely close to mortal? 

He already knew well enough of his blood, foul and thick and so far removed from what it had once been; Higgsbury had brought it up once, a thick air of uncertainty, hesitance in his voice, and in the end Maxwell had snapped at him that it was none of his damn business and to leave well enough alone.

A frankly outlandish response, the other man's bastardized bone claws enough evidence of some sort of connection, but that was a far cry from the pumping of veins and arteries within one's body, wasn't it? The thing inside Maxwell's chest, weak and uneven in its lackluster work, was so far removed from humanity that the old man has found his darker spiraled thoughts, drifting during deep insomnia haunted nights, wondering if he had ever been human at all.

His faded memories, experiences before the Throne, grew untrustworthy the more he tried to ponder. The cloud of shadow influence, on back burner most times, a chronic ambience, was ever so steadily overtaking and twisting his past, tainting, corrupting it. Trying to remember a past life, with a past name, drew the colors monochrome, pasted thin and filled with mist; it was a wonder, then, that Maxwell even remembered Charlie in all her glory.

...Then again, perhaps the shadows will take that away from him too. If he survived long enough, seasons worth of time passing him by, then his memories got worse, cracks scattering through them, deepening until he either misstepped and paid a price with his blood to the offended others-

Or took matters into his own hands, and reset the life run on his own terms. 

_...if the vague, half dream thought, of perhaps not waking again forever more, haunted him during these decisions, then that was only for him to know._

Still his hands shook, these great carved monstrosities, hooked and blackened with an oily sheen, worse than usual, worse than before, he couldn't hope to cover the evidence with his worn gloves _now_ , they'd just tear right through-

A shudder, a hissing breath that seeped from his lungs, his tight chest and swollen throat, and Maxwell stared unblinkingly down at his hands, trembling hard as the pitiful thing in his chest knocked itself to bruising in his distress. 

The whimper slipped through him again, ground out in a snarly breeze, baring his teeth before another shudder rushed through him and it whistled out once more, and Maxwell found that he had to blink, do so a few times, trembling fitfully as dampness graced the corners of his eyes, threatened to fall at the most unwanted of times. His hooked talons, slick with used oil, twitched as he curled them, each finger long and multi jointed, curved in a foul, abominable position, and his next breath came in weaker, more unbalanced than the last.

There was nothing human, about this. Perhaps, perhaps there was nothing human left, _about him._

It shouldn't distress him, the former Nightmare King thought, tried to recognize. Upon that Throne, of Nightmares and Fuel and Terror and Fear, he had never once had to differentiate himself otherwise. He was in the presence of Them, was enthralled, enwreathed within Their folding shadow bindings, and there had never been reason to see himself outside of Them.

...had it been easier, then? Maxwell hissed out another strained breath, whistled out with a weak stutter, and his hooked talons curled down, sharp points prodding to his oily dark palms. These thoughts, these haunting understandings…

Well, it didn't make anything easier.

He didn't bother trying to fit his old gloves upon his hands; the worn through leather was useless to him, and Maxwell set them to his pack with only a hint of clumsiness, uneasy movement as his talons nicked and tore at the backpacks fabric weave. The only thing they would be good for now was to help start a fire.

An ugly knot had curdled into his chest, tightened about that ugly thing that paraded about as his heart, and Maxwell ignored how his hands still trembled, how his every breath still stuttered, wheezed through him with only the lowest of whimpered, pathetic sound. Every once in a while he had to pause, had to squeeze shut his eyes and force the foul deep flood back down, away from drowning him underneath the disgust of what he had long become. 

There wasn't anything he could do now, besides endure.

Patience, and to tolerate what his life has piled upon him. 

...It had taken William so long, learning that, Maxwell even less so. In the end, he supposed Their words and presence has long helped ingrain such belief inside himself early on, and now They aided him in ways he has long taken to heart.

William _wanted_ too much, in the end, and when Maxwell had first accepted himself, that first page, first sheet, a rough draft, he still held his hopes and dreams all to close to his pitiful excuse of a heart to consider how deeply unpleasant it was, this _wanting._

They _wanted_ too, the former Nightmare King had known that almost intimately well, but Their wanting was different from his, so very different. 

Even as he shoved twigs and grasses, trace flower blooms that just barely escaped his dizzy wrath of crushing them between his jagged, overlarge talons, Maxwell knew very well that returning to camp was not exactly a choice he can make anymore.

One look at these, one glance, one examination that would expose the shadows, how They have crawled up his entire arms length now, crawled and latched to his shoulders, seeped thick foul poisons to spread through his chest and throat-

How so little of him was left anymore, how vastly inhuman he was now. It was obvious enough, nowadays, to understand the sort of ire he'd incite from the others if he so exposed himself. 

Understandable, Maxwell told himself, of course he understood so deeply well. He was far too far from the others to be acceptable company any longer, and he had no excuse to even hold his own in connection to, say, Wortox or Wurt, imp and child, cursed beasts as they were.

He had been former Nightmare King, after all! Why would he have ever had some leeway in this matter, when it meant so very much and so very little?

In the end Maxwell made do with dropping the pack off onto one of the brick road crossings that lead back towards camp. There was no fanfare, little sentiments, and his talons flexed, pricked and tugged marks to his sleeves, massive inhuman things, his dark oily skin sodden with thick fueled blood and nothing more.

He met no other on the path, walking the cliffs for a short while as the trail took him the long way around, and yet the spurring sharp lumps in his throat, the ones that tugged the foul thing inside his chest, slowly guided his feet closer and closer to the edge, that drop off edge, loud ocean waves crashing upon the solid, empty faced cliffs-

But then a harsh tremor would grace him, dig his hooked talons into his own flesh as reward to his doddering old dreams, weak and pitiful and oh so _very_ tired. 

And Maxwell walked the path till it stopped, turned down into the direction of a thick forest, uncaring of where he was going besides _not camp_ , anywhere but where others were, others and their stinking, ugly unmasked _humanity-_

His tremors grew worse, as his gut twisted and furled and the nightmare oil he had so carelessly been using these past few days, weeks, seasons worth of time, seeped, dissipated through his system, thickly entrenched into his very blood, but Maxwell let Their sullen whispers guide him far from where he may be confronted, hindered or distracted, and the shaking only grew worse as he walked, as he followed forward.

His eyes must be deceiving him, for his talons only seemed to grow worse, a deep ache to his jaw and discomforting pain racing up and down his spine. His every breath became a stuttered whispered thing, weak and lost, and yet Maxwell allowed his feet to draw him further on, guide him away, far away.

No use, otherwise. When he had to eventually fall to one knee, dusk only just cresting forward now, Maxwell wheezed for thin air and deliriously wondered if They would allow him an end.

What a thing, to dream for, to _want_. If he wasn't struggling so much, tainted and eaten alive by the very oils he had allowed himself to imbibe in, Maxwell would have allowed a simple, weak laugh to escape him.

As it was, struggling for air, struggling to light a simple fire, struggling to keep his mind his own and not enticed by Them and Their _wants_ , the old former Nightmare King shuddered an empty, silent chuckle and hoped the morning would shine on him in a much fairer light.

Not much to dream for, nowadays, but perhaps meeting dawn would be enough to cling to for now.

...How pitiful.


End file.
